"Monica, bring down your dirty clothes!" my mother called up the stairs.
"Yeah, I'll be right down," I shouted absently, turning up the volume on my computer. I was watching the new trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest after watching The Curse of the Black Pearl for the millionth time. I was (in)famous for my obsession with pirates. My friends teased me, my family laughed at me, and I was sure my dog Rex had gotten tired of the sounds of swordfights and cannon fire coming from my room. As for me? I couldn't get enough of it.
Once the trailer was over, I rushed into my room, gathered all the dirty articles of clothing strewn over my floor, and dumped them into my green laundry basket. I tore down the stairs, nearly tripping over my own feet, and rushed to the laundry room.
"Sorry, Monica, you're the last one...again," said my mother. "You know what that means--"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I have to do the first load," I grumbled. My sisters always beat me downstairs--and whether it was for laundry day or emptying the dishwasher, I was always the one stuck doing the most work. I had my clumsiness to blame for that.
"Did you fall down the stairs again?" my mother asked curiously, helping me sort the whites into one basket.
"Almost, but I caught myself!" I said proudly. Any time I prevented myself from tripping, slipping, or falling flat on my face was, in my opinion, a reason for celebration.
"Good. I'd hate for you to miss this load," Mom joked. "Well, get a move on, I'm taking your sisters shopping for dresses for the wedding--thank goodness you've already got yours!"
"Alright, have fun!" I dumped the whites into the washer and proceeded to get the cycle going.
When my mother and sisters were gone, I sat in the kitchen and rubbed my eyes. I was remembering a time I had gotten a bloody nose playing catch with my father in the backyard when I was 7. He had rushed me inside and sat me down on the same chair I was sitting on now. He had told me jokes to keep me distracted from the pain in my nose and the blood running down my face.
"Why is six afraid of seven?" he had asked, pausing in his attempts to stop the blood that was flowing from my nose.
"Why?" I had sniffled. I really didn't care at the time. I mean, really, I was soaked in my own blood! And yet the joke had worked...
"Because seven 'ate' nine!" he had exclaimed, a goofy grin spreading across his face. This had ultimately been what stopped my crying, but that jokes remains my favorite to this day.
My father died when I was fourteen, in a car crash when he was coming home from work one day. There had been a drunk driver coming the opposite way, and he had hit my father's car head-on. the police said he died instantly, with almost no pain. They still haven't caught the man who killed my father.
The last year has been hard on my family, but we've managed. My mother always said that Dad wouldn't have wanted us to be "mopey" when he was gone. It was a nod to his funny, easy-going nature, I guess. A nature that I had inherited, along with my aunts' wit and fondness for sarcasm.
My eyes watering, I returned upstairs to watch the Pirates trailer again. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was my favorite movie--and it had also been my father's.